The SEC is easily the best men’s basketball conference this season, featuring multiple teams that are Final Four contenders. The league is also having too many unwatchable games.
The games are taking too long to play due to a combination of too many fouls and too many reviews. The magnum opus happened to be Alabama’s 94-88 win over Texas A&M, a game decided in regulation that took 2 hours, 48 minutes to complete thanks to 58 personal fouls called and 88 free throws attempted.
The league needs to recall its officials in-season to help get this cleaned up quickly.
The SEC doesn’t keep track of the length of its games. But anyone who has attended in person or watched a broadcast can notice they’re spending more than two hours on the game.
Kentucky basketball’s style of play under coach Mark Pope is extremely fun to watch with its offensive spacing, ability to pass the ball and its 3-point shooting. What’s not fun is seeing the Wildcats slowed by stoppage in play due to foul calls and official reviews.
Every coach in the SEC will tell you how physical it is. What they won’t say — for fear of being fined — is it’s sometimes officiated like a powder puff game. If that bump or that shove doesn’t result in a clear advantage, then it shouldn’t be called.
Far too often, it is.
Take any random game in the league, like Wednesday’s battle between Georgia and Arkansas. I know one fan base, which shall remain nameless, that was probably watching to see if Razorbacks coach John Calipari would fall to 0-6 in the league.
The game dragged on for 2 hours, 34 minutes. It included a combined 49 personal fouls called and 63 free throws taken. Those are the kind of numbers that ruin a good hate-watch.
Basketball isn’t meant to be a free-throw shooting contest. It feels like that’s what it’s turning into.
Measured against the Cats’ conference games from a year ago, things have run long this season. The Cats played five games that lasted longer than 2:15 last season, six if you want to count their overtime win at Texas A&M, and their average game was 2:10.
Four of UK’s first five SEC games this season have taken longer than 2:15, and the average time has been 2:22 in those games. That includes its loss at Georgia that had a duration of 2:35 — which was longer than its overtime win against Gonzaga — and its home win over Texas A&M that lasted 2:33.
By comparison, Louisville hasn’t had an ACC game that’s lasted more than 2:15 through its first nine games, and it is finished in an average of 2:02. Two of its wins, at Syracuse and at Virginia, lasted less than two hours. The Cardinals won eight of those games by double digits, but even their 82-78 win over Pitt only took 2:08.
The Cats and Aggies combined to shoot 56 free throws. Two of those free throws came from unnecessary technical fouls when UK’s Jaxson Robinson was whistled after turning and making a comment and gestured in front of the A&M bench. And the Aggies bench was called for one when several players spilled onto the court while celebrating a Manny Obaseki dunk on the other end of the floor.
Four official reviews added to the game taking longer. I get that there are going to be plays that need reviewing and officials want to make sure they get the call right. But why are they taking so long?
UK’s Lamont Butler was on the floor injured 18 seconds into the second half against the Aggies. After being tended to by the athletics trainer, he was headed off the court after 90 seconds. The officials took another minute and a half in front of the review monitor to get the time on the clock situated, which, for whatever reason, they didn’t think to do while Butler was still on the floor.
Reviews become de facto timeouts, where teams are huddled on the sideline, plays are being drawn up and the officials’ ability to get the players back on the court is akin to herding cats. There’s no recourse for coaches finishing their thoughts as their team takes its time getting back in play.
A minute here, 90 seconds there, it all adds up to games taking longer than they should.
The SEC is the only conference in men’s or women’s basketball to use collaborative replay, where replay officials at the league’s headquarters assist the crew chief on site, and that could possibly be the problem. Maybe there’s too many voices involved with the decision.
The league would be wise to make some sort of adaptation of the NFL’s expedited review process that would allow for a replay official to correct errors to the officials on site in real time.
Basketball games shouldn’t take that long to play. The SEC needs to be reminded of that, or it won’t matter that the league has the best product.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: SEC basketball: Officiating ruining good league product
